A cold snort rang out, and the burly man leaped up and kicked the old man in the lower abdomen. The old man shrieked in fright. A streak of purple light burst from between his brows, and immense spiritual power condensed into thirty-six exquisite little round shields before him. Each shield seemed forged from purple crystal, translucent and solid as substance itself, with an incomparably intricate and complex divine rune flashing at its center.
The auras of thirty-six different runes converged, forming a nested set of divine runes representing "Eternal Defense." This set of nested divine runes was precisely the core rune structure on the Shield of Victory worshipped by the Church of the Goddess of Victory on the Western Continent.
In other words, the old man had released artifact-grade defensive power through spiritual force alone. The shield formed from his spiritual power was clearly nowhere near as durable as the Shield of Victory, but to casually unleash the nested divine runes of Eternal Defense—such strength could only be called terrifying.
Yet this formidable artifact-grade defense shattered with a thunderous crash before the burly man's effortless kick. His toe smashed through twenty-four layers of purple round shields before abruptly drawing back. The old man's face turned utterly ugly as he waved his arms and shouted, "You Tiger Clan people are clever—far cleverer than us Fox Clan people! Whoever dares say you're stupid, I'll personally sort them out!"
The burly man nodded in satisfaction and sat cross-legged on the stone bed, glaring fiercely at the old man. "Let me correct one thing. Over the years, the death and injury rate among the Tiger Clan's main-line blood descendants has risen by thirty percent, but the number of clansmen who condensed true Seeds of Power has increased by fifty percent! Cruel battles, breakthroughs